You can see Dr. Neals’ Yelp page here. It appears there are two more one star reviews from people complaining about legal actions related to poor reviews. Despite this the doctor has a very good overall Yelp rating of 4.5, a Google rating of 4.8 and a Healthgrades rating of 4.9.

My first reaction is why? Almost every person will ignore the single negative review and judge the dentist on the mass of positive reviews and the very high overall ratings. I understand the ego bruise negative reviews create however a couple of bad reviews will not materially effect the business. On the other hand lots of bad reviews can be devastating That is not what we have here…yet.

By acting on the bad reviews the doctor has drawn attention to them, they are now in the news and he has actually generated more one star reviews by threatening legal action.

The dentist has not only generated negative publicity he has very little chance of winning a legal action. So far the courts have sided with Yelp and with patients; the courts consider reviews a consumer protection and free speech issue.

I have great sympathy for dentists and others who are the subject of malicious reviews. The system as it is now set up is heavily biased toward consumers and against businesses. Never the less a dentist can best deal with an occasional bad review by ignoring it and overwhelming it with good reviews. It will be interesting to see where this goes.